Chapter 938: Chamber of Reflections [Bonus 6]
Getting to his feet, Arthur said, "I guess we should watch out for traps that try to separate us as well."
Rishia nodded in agreement, but before she could speak, a rumbling noise echoed from behind her. When she turned, she saw a giant boulder, roughly the size of the passageway, rolling down the inclined floor.
She stared at it for a moment, then flicked her finger, releasing a bolt of cosmic energy that struck it dead centre, shattering it into pieces that fell to the ground and rolled beside them.
Seeing this, Arthur chuckled lightly. "The cliché boulder trap. Still, whose idea was it to put all of this on this floor?"
In a slightly quiet voice, Rishia replied, "By process of elimination, Lady Gindry."
"Gindry?" Arthur asked, blinking with mild surprise. "How do you figure?"
"We’ve clearly passed Lord Raikis’ and Lady Berlal’s floors. Lord Barda’s floor is probably themed around Time and Space, Lord Gervod’s floor is definitely meant for your Trials, and Lady Wyndella’s floor is certain to have ’Creation’ as its theme.
So by process of elimination, this floor was likely designed by Lady Gindry."
Hearing this, Arthur found logic in her words. But just as she finished speaking, another rumbling sound reached their ears, and they turned to see another boulder rolling down the inclined floor.
Unlike the previous rocky boulder, this one was shiny black and metallic, with countless small holes across its surface, from which an unknown liquid sprayed out. When the liquid hit the wall, an ominous hiss sounded as the wall itself began to melt.
Arthur shifted his gaze from the incoming boulder to Rishia, raising an eyebrow as he asked, "You want to try blowing that one up?"
"Of course not," Rishia replied, immediately turning and dashing down the inclined slope, with Arthur following right behind her.
The two ran down the passageway for about a minute before their eyes caught sight of its end.
However, as they leapt out of the passageway, they saw that the floor below was submerged in a thick black liquid.
Not wanting to risk finding out what it was or what it did, Arthur immediately used his Gravity Authority to create a small anti-gravity well between him and Rishia, pushing both of them toward opposite walls.
Rishia immediately understood why he had done that as she flipped, landed on her legs, and ran along the walls toward the exit at the other end of the room.
The boulder that had been rolling behind them tumbled out of the passageway they had just left and into the pool of black liquid, sinking silently into its depths, while Arthur and Rishia landed in a second passageway at the far end.
When they warily followed the passageway to its end, they found themselves in a familiar-looking chamber with three pathways.
Seeing this, Arthur couldn’t help but sigh. "This is where we started, isn’t it?"
"Yes, we’re back at the start," Rishia replied, faintly frowning.
After all the turns, traps, and passages, the two of them had returned to the beginning.
Floor 3 was looking to be the most difficult one yet.
That was what Arthur and Rishia thought as they began their second journey through Floor 3.
However, by the time they had finished navigating the arrays of traps, having been sent back to the starting chamber around 73 times, and finally succeeded in making their way through the labyrinthine maze to the end, the two removed that "yet" from their earlier statement and concluded that Floor 3 was certainly the most difficult of them all.
Like the previous floors, clearing it came with rewards, and ironically, the rewards they gained after finishing Floor 3 were the Skills and Abilities that would have helped them clear it if they had possessed them beforehand.
For example, Arthur unlocked his ability to use cosmic energy and gained his Authorities of Time and Space, two Authorities that would have been extremely useful because of their detection capabilities.
They would have allowed him to see through many of the physical, non-magical traps that had filled Floor 3.
Rishia, on the other hand, unlocked access to her Clairveil Eyes. Simply put, this optical ability embodied the statement, "Dragon eyes can see through all truths."
Of course, she obviously couldn’t see through everything that existed, not when even the Levites who possessed similar eyes could not, but she would surely have been able to see through all of the pressure traps, the dead-end walls, the blades and arrows and poison darts and the rest that flew out from the walls, and most importantly, the illusion traps toward the end of Floor 3.
Alas, there was nothing they could do about Floor 3, which was now behind them.
They could only rest for a short while before stepping through the doors that led to Floor 4.
When they entered Floor 4, they were greeted by a world of white.
Everything around them was white, so much white that it was disconcerting to look at.
Taking a few steps forward in silence, they discovered that the walls around them were mirrors, reflecting their appearances.
At some point, the mirrors were no longer simply flat surfaces but had cracks running through them, and some were angled and inclined at different degrees, still connecting to each other without any gaps to form the walls at their sides.
Given the way things were arranged, Arthur guessed they were likely in another labyrinth of some kind.
When they turned the first corner, however, they found themselves at the entrance to a large hall.
Arthur silently pushed open the glass doors and stepped in, with Rishia following behind him, his gaze carefully scanning the hall.
It was dodecagonal in shape, with each side wall made of a single standalone mirror, while the dome-shaped ceiling above them consisted of several hundred shattered mirror pieces that reflected their appearances from every possible angle.
Shaking his head, Arthur turned toward Rishia and spoke.
"Okay, this is actually kind of fucking with my mi—"
His voice cut off mid-sentence, and Rishia turned toward him, her eyebrow raised in confusion, wondering why he had suddenly gone quiet.
But Arthur just stared at her in silence for a few seconds before stepping closer, a strange look on his face.
"What’s wrong?" she asked, her confusion clear.
Arthur didn’t answer. He kept closing the distance until there was barely any space between them.
Not wanting to collide with him, Rishia took a step back, and Arthur stepped closer. She stepped back again, and he moved closer once more. This continued until Rishia’s back was against the wall, and Arthur was staring down at her in silence without a word.
It seemed he still intended to move forward, so Rishia finally raised a hand and pushed against his chest, forcing him back slightly as she asked, "What are you doing?"
She was genuinely confused, as anyone would be with Arthur suddenly acting like this.
After she spoke, Arthur’s eyes glowed blue with the infusion of temporal law energy from his recently reacquired Authority, and then he spoke.
"Who are you?"
For a moment, there was silence.
Rishia blinked in confusion, then asked, "What are you on about?"
"Cut the bullshit," Arthur replied, his voice cold. "Who the fuck are you?"
Rishia was about to respond, but Arthur’s left hand shot forward at incredible speed, latching onto her neck faster than she could grab his wrist.
He lifted her while choking her, the scene reflected in all the mirrors around them, on each side wall and on every mirror shard that made up the dome-shaped ceiling above them.
As Arthur tightened his grip on Rishia’s neck, he asked for the third time, "Who are you?"
Rishia tried to pry his hand away, but Arthur wasn’t holding her neck with physical strength alone. He was also using his active Gravity Authority to apply additional force around his palm, locking his grip.
That gravitational force was also acting on Rishia’s body, pressing her arms closer to her sides and making it difficult for her to move.
A tail burst out from her lower back and shot toward his stomach, but its spiked tip couldn’t pierce the thick shield of cosmic energy Arthur generated at the point it aimed for.
Sighing, Arthur then spoke.
"Look, I’m not close enough to Rishia to notice subtle differences like I would with Layla, Nicole, or Esna.
But even I wouldn’t be completely oblivious if your entire fucking existence was different. So I’ll ask again: who are you, and where is Rishia?"
Just as Arthur said this, the person he was holding by the neck stopped struggling and chuckled softly.
They were laughing.
The entity wearing Rishia’s face was laughing, and the sight unsettled Arthur. To him, this was only more reason to be certain that the being before him was NOT Rishia.
After all, he could count on one hand the number of times he had seen Rishia laugh in all the years he had known her and still have fingers left over.
Just as Arthur’s eyes narrowed slightly, the being in front of him spoke words that challenged his certainty that she was a fake.
"You seem to be under some misconception, Arthur Vaughn," she said. "You think that I am not ’Rishia,’ as you call her, but I am in fact Altrishia Weiss."
Before Arthur could respond, a chorus of voices echoed in his ears, all saying the same thing.
"""We all are Altrishia Weiss."""
Arthur felt a chill run down his spine as he immediately turned and saw that every single mirror reflection of Rishia was staring directly at him.
Cosmic energy flowed into his eyes, and he activated his Temporal Authority at full power, sending a wave of law energy across the entire hall.
His Authority scanned all the mirror images, noting that unlike the images of himself, which were merely reflections, the Altrishias within those ’reflections’ were all real, independent existences.
And what’s more, each and every one of them was different.
There was something spatiotemporally distinct about every single one, just like the one he was holding by the neck.
The differences between some were so subtle that Arthur would not have noticed them if he hadn’t been actively searching for such distinctions.
Then he recalled the words Rishia had spoken to him on the previous floor and quickly reached a conclusion about what was happening.
"Parallel Paths. You are all from parallel pathways along the flow of time. You are all the Altrishias that could have been, and not a single one of you is the Rishia that is."
He released the one he had been holding, and as she fell to the ground, he walked away, clicking his tongue and muttering, "Yeah, this is definitely Barda’s Floor."
